The participants will each give a short contribution on their view of the current conflict from the perspective of collective memory, followed by a panel discussion including the public moderated by Katherine Watson, director ECF.

The conflict in Ukraine is often seen in a global perspective: geopolitical spheres seem to compete again, often with reference to cold war rhetoric.
On the ground the conflict has another dimension: clashing collective memories resulting in seemingly different cultural identities. Panellists will try to deconstruct cultural reference points that form the basis of the conflict and talk about what would be needed to construct new, inclusive narratives.

The evening follows up a similar discussion one-and-a-half years ago, when the images of the Maidan clashes where still fresh in mind. What has happened since, what is the perspective for Ukrainian identity internally and internationally at the moment?

On the participants:

Ivan Krastev is the Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, and permanent fellow at the IWM Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, e.a. He was ranked in the 2008 Top 100 Public Intellectuals Foreign Policy/Prospect List. Since 2004, he has been the executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans chaired by the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato.

Vasyl Cherepanyn is director of the Visual Culture Research Center (Kiev), works as a senior lecturer at the Cultural Studies Department of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and is an editor of Political Critique magazine. Cherepanyn holds a Ph.D. in philosophy (specialisation – aesthetics). He has also worked as a guest lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Political Critique in Warsaw, Poland and the Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald of the Greifswald University, Germany.

Fleur de Weerd is a historian, and independent journalist, who has written extensively about Germany and the former Soviet Union for various newspapers in the Netherlands and Belgium. She was the official correspondent for Dutch daily Trouw in Ukraine during the Euro-Cup Soccer championship and has visited the country often in 2014. Her book Het land dat maar niet wil lukken was awarded the prestigious Bob den Uyl-prijs for best literary travelogue. It recounts various diverse and complex (hi)stories of Ukraine and its inhabitants.